


Tiptoe Through The Tulips (They're Brighter Than I Remember)

by Anonymous



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Flowey Pot au, Nonbinary Frisk, Other, Post-Pacifist Route, Sans has chronic fatigue, Self Harm, YEAH charisk, added relationships will probably be sans/toriel and undyne/alphys, but it's here now, eating disorder mention, everybody has dubious mental health and it's all cool, nonbinary chara, oh shit forgot to add that chara and frisk are aged up, ok ok i honestly have no idea what this is or where it's going, sort of just cute teens being in love and all that gay stuff, theyre like sixteen or something probably, very brief mentions for both of these, will add more tags as chapters are added, you're probably welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-09 14:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5543462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frisk studies too hard. Far too hard, in Chara's opinion. Fortunately for Frisk, their datemate is always there to roll their eyes and offer sound (and sometimes very emphatically insisted upon) advice.</p><p>It seems like everyone is getting a happy ending, truly, this time.</p><p>(some non-platonic charisk because i've been drowning in it for days, help)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ikea is a reliable source of food, probably. Right?

**Author's Note:**

> howdy. 
> 
> im a sinner but if youre here then that means ill see you in hell, nerds

You groan loudly, stretching out to reach across the table in front of Frisk. You plant your face into the wood and ignore the numerous angry _'shh!'_ s of other library patrons as you empty your lungs into the over-exaggerated, drawn-out manifestation of your boundless exasperation.

  
"Fr _iii_ sk," you say, turning to look at them, "are you SERIOUSLY not done yet? Because I was done four hours ago. You know, around the same time we were supposed to be out of here?" You sit up, continuing your spiel, much to the dismay of your fellow library goers, "I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of twelve o'clock, considering that was the time you established as our leaving time before we came here."

  
You could easily continue, quite emphatically, in your complaints. You've done it before; ranted for over an hour (even you lost track of how long you'd been talking) but honestly, where Frisk was involved, you may as well have been complaining directly into the crumbling mortar of a brick wall. Despite your abrupt interruption of the silence in the library, they're still just sitting there, a slight smile on their face, occasionally moving pages over in the absolute tome of a book they're currently skimming. Completely unperturbed. They've dealt with you long enough that your voice is like background noise to them, if you're not saying anything particularly worthwhile.

  
_At least Sans is a little more easy to fuck with,_ you think, as you turn your attention to where he's sitting. After all this time he still doesn't know quite what to make of you. He's always a little on edge when you're around. Perhaps it was that one time where you may have threatened him with a knife when you were getting used to having a real body again. But he shouldn't be so hung up on that- it was _years_ ago and the knife wasn't even pointed at him, in particular! It was more of a group-oriented knife. And you'd dropped it as soon as Frisk had told you to, after all. Or maybe it's the fact that he still thinks of you as the 'anomaly'. You've never bothered to correct him. The truth would just fuck him up even worse than lies ever have.

  
Still. The reflexive tightening around his ever-present grin is at least somewhat amusing in the dead boredom of the library.

  
You're interrupted before you can even begin toying with him, by a tap on your hand. You turn back to Frisk with an eyebrow raised.

  
**'Stop tormenting Sans, Chara.'** They sign, eyes still on their book.

  
You splutter in indignation. "I wasn't doing anything!" When they finally look up just to make a face at you, you flush hotly and say, "You didn't even give me time to start doing anything."

  
They snicker and Sans interjects. "what, were you trying to get under my skin again, kid?" He winks. "you know that doesn't work with me."

  
You roll your eyes as Frisk laughs, and lean your chair back onto its two hind legs, arms dangling limply on either side. You try to while away the minutes by counting the innumerous star stickers stuck to the ceiling, and don't admit it to yourself when you fail. Your sleeves fall down over your hands and you unceremoniously shove them back up to your elbows. You're drawing enough looks without baring the scars on your forearms but, in all honesty, you've never given a damn what innocent bystanders think of you. And if they can find it in their plethora of coloured hearts to keep their noses buried in their own shit, then all the better for them.

  
Out of the corner of your eye you can see Frisk frowning at you. Goddamn them and their apparently latent ability to read your mind even now that you're not literally inside their head.

  
**'Maybe you should find some manga to read?'** They sign, after a few minutes of you rocking back and forth on the chair and flirting with gravity and its unforgiving datemate, the ground.

  
You snort. "Yeah, if they have anything left after Alphys raided the shelves the other day." You lean back until only the tips of your shoes are touching the floor. "Why does a university library even have a manga section, anyway? Although I suppose in this day and age the next generations of super nerds are all weebs, so maybe it checks out." Your spine cracks as you stretch, languid as a cat, arms above your head. You're so immersed in this most riveting of activities that you don't realise Sans has gotten up until he slams your chair back onto all four legs and you almost faceplant into the table, saved at the last second by your ever-reliable elbows and poor, battered hands.

  
"safety first," he says, directly into your face when you spin around to glare at him, grin as wide as ever across his skull. He slides his hand back into his hoodie pocket and winks at you, or Frisk, or- both? Both of you? You have no idea. His pupils are literally just pinpricks of light deep in his eyesockets, hardly reliable for figuring out his perspective. "welp, i think i'm gonna head back to the lab. i've got a few students waiting for me."

  
"Class started nine minutes ago. They've _been_ waiting for you, and will continue to do so for probably another ten minutes considering the speed at which you'll be able to shuffle your pelvis all the way across campus, Sans. Or, lack of speed, I should probably say."

  
Sans stares at you for a few more seconds, before his gaze flits, along with your own, down to where Frisk is intertwining their fingers with yours. You both look at Frisk, smiling their eye-crinkling, sun-bright smile as they are at Sans before they sign with their other hand, letting go of their book, ' **See you later. Have fun!'**

  
Sans shrugs, and the bone around his eyes softens as he looks at them. "i dunno how you can handle them twenty-four/seven, kid, seeing as you've actually got skin for them to get under." He eyes you. "but you're takin it like a champ anyway." He goes to leave, and you almost say "That's not the only thing they're taking like a champ," but you bite it back when Frisk notices the hysterical grin forming around your mouth and bursts out laughing, waggling their eyebrows. You can deal with letting a perfect shot go to waste if Frisk is enjoying themself. Still, their telepathic skills leave a lot to be desired, if you aren't gaining any mutual benefits from this. Although, you're not entirely certain you want to know what Frisk is thinking. They always seem to know exactly what's ahead.

  
You let Sans leave the library without any further harassment. He disappears before you can get the chance to do anything, anyway. Probably took another shortcut because just walking up the stairs exhausts him. You'd call him a lazybones, but your heart's just not in that particular insult. Partially because it's more Papyrus's territory and therefore more of a term of endearment than actual insult, but partially because chronic fatigue's a shitty thing to deal with. You'd know, as having gone from living kid to dead kid to mummified corpse to ghost guide to suddenly having a physical, magical, manifestation to inhabit can really take it out of you, being a typically non-magical being as you are. At least, earlier on. By now, you're mostly fine.

  
Sans'll probably have it 'til the day he dies, though.

  
Frisk goes to pull their hand back from yours, and you grab onto it gently with both. They look up in surprise at the feeling of your lips on their knuckles and you draw back, before asking "Seriously though. How much longer are we going to be here? That book's not going anywhere, and they put you on record for having special access to it, right? We can just come back another day. We've been here for hours." You play with their fingers, then remember. "You haven't eaten today." You make an executive decision. "Come on, we're getting lunch now." You get up and flip the book shut in front of them, sending a sudden explosion of dust across the table before shoving your chair in with an errant foot.

  
"Come on," you insist, pulling them out of their chair (they're as heavy as they look but you're stronger than you do) and they barely have enough time to tug the damnable book off the table before you're dragging them towards the counter to hand it back. Frisk had to request special access to it, and even then needed a member of staff's (Sans, obviously) documented approval to get to read it. Apparently because it's so fucking old a dinosaur was probably involved in the harvesting of the glue for the pages instead of a horse, but alright, you guess. Frisk needed it desperately for their research into the human-monster war and pre-war times.

  
They hand it in and you watch as the librarian person places it carefully into its case like it's more expensive than their parents and locks it. You eye the drawer where they replace the key to the modern-style padlock (one of the ones you haven't mastered picking just yet, and probably never will because laziness) for potential later use. Should Frisk ever be in sudden need of ancient reading material, of course.

  
Then suddenly _they're_ the impatient one and you find yourself being veritably _dragged_ out the front doors and onto the grounds of the university. You could go to the cafeteria on campus, but there's actually an Ikea across the road and you're a sucker for their cinnamon buns. Frisk orders the meatballs and you have no idea how they can stomach them after all these years of having Papyrus's mangled spaghetti shoved down their throat. You eat with one eye on their plate, making sure they finish it before you leave. You know you have no reason to worry, Frisk is... well. Frisk just _is_. They still have night terrors sometimes (but you're always there and you're a light sleeper so you wake them up if you notice anything's out of the ordinary, and if you don't get there in time you're content to just hold them tight enough that they don't feel like their rib cage is going to shatter outwards), and then there's the constant undertone of anxiety they have that contributes to the stress of their selective mutism, but it's something they've mostly overcome after years of speaking at meetings with government officials- of course Frisk would be the person to agree to be the monster-human ambassador despite having a debilitating social disorder.

  
But they've always been better at taking care of themself than most people. Better than you, most certainly. They're usually the one to clean the blood off your arms and legs and make sure your bandages are clean when you get... well. Bad. Nothing more to say on that. And they used to be the one who had to force you to eat, just a few years ago. But, still. You're cautious. Their studies always have them so thoroughly involved in researching in dusty antiques stores and libraries where most of the records they're seeking are kept under lock and key that they forget they have a physical form to maintain. At least you have an excuse for neglecting your body, if not actively abusing it. But hey. It's fine if they forget stuff like eating and sleeping, because you're there to remind them. You absentmindedly hand them a napkin to wipe a little bit of sauce from the corner of their mouth. They still seem sort of out of it. Focused on whatever they managed to find in that book.

  
They'll tell you about it when they've finished processing it. They always do.


	2. Words Spoken At Midnight (give or take four hours)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frisk finally tells Chara what's on their mind. Not an awful lot happens, but hey, more content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the way frisk speaks is sort of stutter-y and disjointed and stuff, so i apologise if you have some difficulty in reading their dialogue. ((it's actually sort of the way I speak, yay))  
> also, not a lot of actual stuff happens, really. but YOU'RE involved! congrats!!! (they know it was you)
> 
> also, apologies if the formatting is kind of weird. I'm still trying to figure out the best layout for paragraph groupings and stuff. gdi.

It's like 3 in the morning when they finally decide to talk to you about it. They interrupt a dream filled with blue skulls and eerie chiptune music playing in the background and when you wake you shrug off the feeling of something heavy and wet sitting between your shoulder blades. They nudge you again and whisper your name, voice hoarse, and you roll over to face them. You realise they're sitting up, and join them.

"What is it?"

They take a moment to speak. They don't tend to talk aloud, unless it's urgent, or they're tired, or whatever they're trying to communicate would necessitate the use of really uncommon signs, so you wait, patiently. Then, "Most human documentation of the War is _wrong_. A lot of it is, is either in-inaccurate, or biased lies about how monsters were terrible and dangerous, and the rest is p-pretty much just-" they wave their hands around as if trying to catch the words they need to explain, "bullshit." Nice. "And over time, people forgot. They stopped taking it all seriously and monsters became myths and legends, and werewolves, and, and mermaids and vampires. They became things to scare little kids with. At first, it's like... it's like people so desperately wanted their children and their children's children to remember the monsters and k-ke-keep them trapped underground, and that's what the older books were mostly about. But then it just... sort of- faded. Really suddenly, though, with no warning. Like one day everyone just wanted to- to- just decided to pretend that monsters never existed. And I... I didn't know why until I found that book. It's so old it doesn't even have a title, and it's written in a language I can only translate hal-half of."

They sigh. "It says that one of the old kings, the one who called himself the King of all Humans and took over half the world and..." They pause. "Well, he k-he killed a lot of people to get what he wanted. And so a lot of people hated him b-but couldn't do anything. 'He was feared by all and loved by none', which is a quote from, like, the first chapter. Thing was, he was terrified of monsters. So there was this hu-huge movement by a lot of the world he hadn't already conquered to free the monsters from the underground just to undermine him, but he-he-he outlawed it. He sent his strongest armies and soldiers to almost every pl-place where people still practised magic, which was just a skill people carried down through generations, but wasn't anything like monster's magic, and had them all killed. He burned down villages and tore apart houses and killed hundreds of people if they were even asso-associated with anyone who called themself a w-wit-witch. A lot of these people were just doctors who knew which plants were useful for medicine. And he had them hunted down and burned alive."

Your gaze traces their silhouette, outlined by the moonlight pouring in from the window. Their eyes are downcast and unfocused. "Then, he... he sort of, organised an alliance with other leaders across the world and they all agreed to have..." They take a deep breath and exhale, and you can feel the air stirring from where you're sitting. After a moment of silence, you search for their hand in the blankets, and hold it, quietly. You watch their mouth twitch into a half-hearted smile and feel the knot of tension in your chest unfurl slightly.

"Frisk?"

"They agreed to burn all records of the monster-human war." Their voice is depthless and it sends ice down your spine.

"... Oh," you whisper.

"And that's why," they laugh, breathless, "after years of searching I haven't... I haven't found anything to help monsters. Not a single book or tablet or tapestry or, or, anything that I could take to the embassy and actually tell them what their ancestors really thought-thought about monsters. Because every single recording of monsters, if positive or, like, good, or anything that might have painted them in a sympathetic light or made humans think they were real and should be found and saved was rounded up and torn apart and des-des-destroyed and anything that could stop a second monster-human war went up in smoke and ash and-and and flames hundreds of years ago." They lean into you, suddenly boneless. "And, and you know what? The woman who wrote the book was burned alive, too, for having written it. Her name was scratched out in the copy I read but I found her in the set of witch-burning records I came across a few months ago. She was flattened with stones and half-drowned and then tied to a post in the middle of a village and burned alive for _trying to write the truth-_ " They interrupt themself with a sudden noise that's somewhere between a bitter laugh and a sob, and you have no idea what to do.

"You just don't _know_ , Chara, you don't know how close humans are to just killing every monster on the surface. They're not even going to put them underground again, they're just going to bomb them and burn them and history's just going to repeat again and I, I've failed, again I-I've failed everyone and they're all going to die and we're going to wake up in the flowers again like last time, Chara, I can't do this all again it's been years Chara we've never made it this far before-"

" _Frisk_." Your voice is ash and dust and heavy river stones and clouded black slime creeping up your neck but they're losing it, they're losing themself, and you need to stop them before they're gone completely so you, " _Stop_. This is about Sans and his fucking ridiculous timeline reports, yeah?"

"Uh, he-"

"That's a yes, then." You snort in disgust. "He shouldn't have told you about that."

"He didn't want to lie to me-"

"I didn't tell you because I knew you'd react like this-"

"You mean you lied to me to kee- keep me naive and happy-"

"I _mean_ I didn't want to worry you with stuff that doesn't even apply to us-"

"You don't _know_ -"

"I do know, Frisk! I know! You think I'm not _terrified_ by the thought that this timeline could end at any moment? Every time I go to sleep I'm petrified by the knowledge that I might not wake up next to you because I'll be a corpse in the ground again and we'll have to go through everything again and that timeline might be the one where we, where... I..."

"Chara."

You're not looking at them. You're looking off into the darkness of your room and your hands are white-knuckled in the sheets and you're _not looking at them_ because you never talk about this, this fear, not ever.

 

Not with them.

 

"Chara."

You don't respond.

"Chara."

Their hands are warm and gentle as they carefully detangle your own from the blankets. Your fingers are cramped.

"Chara?"

 

"..."

 

They sigh. Their breath is warm on your neck when they lean their head against yours.

"I won't pretend to know much about those timelines."

Everything about them is so warm.

"I don't have any memory of what happens after we kill all those monsters in the ruins."

They're talking slowly. They have a habit of stuttering if they try to talk too fast. It's like they're tripping over their own words, sometimes. But they're trying to be very clear, now. You appreciate the effort.

"I can... sort of remember..." they're mumbling, now, "looking into a mirror. But it wasn't my face looking back. Bu-but, but that d-doesn't-" They inhale sharply. "That doesn't matter, not really. I know it's not your fault." They move back, probably looking at you. You remain motionless. You don't want to meet their eyes, right now. You don't deserve to even see them. "I know, Chara. I know about the third."

 

That gets you.

 

"You... what?" Shock has you facing them. They look sad. But they're smiling.

"I know. I've always known." They shrug. "But you were always the one who dealt with them, and I could feel you sometimes, getting between me and them. I never really got a good, heh, look at them, but I could feel them. Guiding my actions. A lot of my choices weren't even really mine." They laugh. "But that's okay. Because they still got us here. And they haven't forced a reset this time. Do you know if... if they're gone, for good?"

 

You're, for once, the speechless one.

 

They smile, looking down again. "That's okay. But... really, all of that, it's all why I try so hard to be a good ambassador. For all this time, I haven't felt them controlling me. I've been able to help everyone without being forced to, and... I'm greatful for the chance to repay everyone for how _kind_ they've been to me." They look up at you again, beaming. "I don't deserve any of it, not really. I wasn't the one who freed the monsters, or became friends with Undyne and Toriel and Sans and all of the others, _they_ were. And the moment I got out of the underground, when they told me to agree to be the ambassador, I... I knew they were telling me how to help everyone. Monsters _and_ humans. So, I just..." Their expression fades, and their gaze goes through you in the eeriest of ways. "Now that I know, for certain, that I can't find anything to prove that humans and monsters were able to co-exist peacefully, there... there might be another war. And... finding out that every shred of evidence, every document and book and drawing, was destroyed by one person hundreds of years ago, it's like..."

 

Frisk isn't even looking at you now. They're speaking through gritted teeth and you feel like interrupting them because it hurts, it hurts to see them this way, they're always the cheerful one, they're the optimistic, 'someone was forcing my every move while I was in the underground and yet I'm still somehow thankful for them' grinning idiot and you love them for it, and seeing them like this is- jarring. But all you can really do is watch them.

 

"It's like, all the control I thought I had, for the first time... it was all a lie. No reset, after all these years. Maybe it's all for nothing? Maybe nothing I do has ever been my choice, maybe I'm always just destined to be this puppet stuck in a loop for some person I can't even see who can somehow murder everyone I encounter and then reset and play everyone for utter fucking _f-fools_ in the next timeline- maybe them making me the ambassador, maybe it was just another way to play with me? To entertain themself? But, but I could- I could have, I could have saved everyone myself if- if-"

You watch the tears drip onto the sheets in numb silence, and it takes the jerking motion of their shoulders in a heavy, choking sob to make you reach out and pull them to you. Your arms form a cage around their shoulders and you try to hold them tight enough that they stop worrying about coming apart as they cry into your shirt and make fists in its fabric.

"B-bu-but ev-everyth-everything I've d-done, it-it still isn-isn't enough, and, and, and- everyone's gon-gonna d-die, again-"

"Frisk, Frisk, it's- it's okay-" It isn't.

"It's-it's never en-en-enough, I can't save everyone- I can't save anyone..."

You don't have a lie big enough to patch this wound. You don't even have a lie that could comfort them right now.

So. The truth, then.

You speak through gritted teeth and clenched jaw, crushing them so tightly to your chest you're not sure if they can even breathe. "The truth... is that they have a _sick_ sense of humour. They've ripped your soul back to the start after killing everyone, after saving everyone, after every decision they made that they decided wasn't good enough. But the thing about the Third... is that they're impatient. They wouldn't wait this long, watch you for all these years without manipulating you again, just to see this timeline ended again and start it all over _again_. You're right. They're gone. They left after you left with Toriel. I don't know where they went, but with any luck..."

 

 

"With any luck... they're **b u r n i n g i n h e l l**." Chara hisses slowly above you in a way that almost reminds you of Sans. But... different. It's like Chara's actually watching someone's corpse charring in ever-consuming flames after having thrown it in there themself.

"...Chara?" you whisper, but your voice is small and it's swallowed up by the fabric of their shirt.

"Sans's timeline reports come from a machine that measures _all_ timelines. Just because one of them is going to end soon doesn't mean that it's going to be this one." They take a deep breath, and for a little while there's only the sound of your harsh breathing in the dark space of your bedroom.

"Everything going alright with Russia?" they ask, change in tone sudden enough to be jarring.

"Uh, yeah," you say, pulling back and looking up at them, confused.

"It's not Korea, then, is it?" Their expression is serious, but not as terrible and cruel as you know it probably was before.

Oh. It clicks. "N-no, Mettaton's smoothed over matters there, and with Japan too." You let go of their shirt to wipe the tears off your face, easing into ambassador mode. "There's still-still some resistance from a couple of the states in-in-in America, but those are already ones with human rights issues anyway... New Z-Zealand and-and England are as supportive and monster-friendly as ever, and the Pacific Islands are all open too... Poland, Italy, Australia... France, Germany, China... South Africa, Spain..." You go through the list of every place where legal and social monster rights have been faced with at least some resistance over the past few years. "They've all basically accepted monsters, and some of them have even turned around completely and offered legal support and stuff for monster citizenships, which is good."

"So what's the problem?"

You don't answer.

They sigh.

"Frisk?"

"You remember how it ended last time, don't you."

"... Of course."

"How?"

"..." They don't answer. Then, "Abruptly."

"With another war."

They look sharply at you. "The one you avoided this time. And you know it wasn't your fault in that timeline-"

"I'm the ambassador. Of course it was my fault."

"Frisk, it wasn't-"

"Yes, it was. It's my job to keep the peace between humans and monsters, and I failed." You sigh irritably. They're not getting it. "I don't mean it in a bad way, either. I'm not, I'm not trying to pin the blame on myself- I just. I know I could have stopped it. But I didn't. And that's how it is. And that's... that's okay, I guess? It's fine."

They interject before you can continue. "No, it's not fine, because it really wasn't-"

"Yes, it was! Sans told us, told me, that he'd gotten an advanced report of a timeline that was about to end. When it was announced that North Korea had formed an alliance with Russia..." You remember, very clearly, how, at first, you hadn't connected the two.

Then the bombs had started falling, and you had realised.

You had been the one to force the reset, then, while Chara was kneeling with their hands covered in Toriel's dust.

 

You try not to think about that timeline too much.

 

 

 

"There was no way you could have known." Your eyes are probably distant, now, remembering the feeling of Toriel's remnants on your skin. For once, her death hadn't been on your hands.

It was an odd experience.

 

You sigh. "Speaking from a subjective viewpoint, it doesn't really matter whose fault it was anymore, does it? This time around, you avoided that. Now you just have to continue watching out for things _you_ can change."

They remain silent. You decide to try for another angle.

"And, Frisk, who really gives a shit whether or not you have some dusty old tome documenting the intimate details of monster and human relationships? Like what, were you gonna read out a smutfic about some flame kid boning a human I mean I knew you were Frisky but-" They elbow you, hard, but they're laughing and it's a nice sound to fill the empty space of the bedroom with.

"I know you might think that sort of thing's _hot_ but you gotta take this shit more seriously-" They clamp a hand over your mouth and laugh harder.

 

Your moment is interrupted by a groggy voice from Frisk's side of the room, in the vicinity of their bedside table. "Are you seriously making puns over there at 4 am again?"

 

You wrap your hands gently around Frisk's and pull theirs off your face to answer your brother past their fingers. "Go back to sleep, Az. We're just discussing the fate of humanity. Nothing to concern you." You wink at Frisk. They smile.

Asriel yawns, curling his leaves sleepily as he murmurs, "Yeah, yeah... of course the flower needs more sleep than two humans, right..." before his head droops back down to rest on the edge of his flower pot.

You watch him for a few more minutes over Frisk's head to be certain that he's asleep. Then you meet their eyes again and smirk when you notice them blinking, tiredly.

"We should continue this discussion in the morning, Frisk." They nod, yawning. You're still holding their hands, so you guide them back down to the bed. You're pretty sure they're asleep before their head even sinks into the pillow.

What can you say, they get tired easy.

You, you take about five hours and a shot of Nyquil to get to sleep, some nights.

Fortunately, tonight isn't one of those nights, so you fall asleep with them tucked carefully to your chest. You can see your brother from where you're lying, and you take a deep, slow breath, trying to just anchor yourself in a reality where everything is, for the first time, okay. You're surrounded by people you love, friends and family and soul mate.

You'd be lying if you tried to say that it wouldn't change, that you'd never have to watch Frisk wake up in the bed of flowers above your grave with a stick and a bandage and ripped leggings and tattered sweater again, that you'd never have to bow to the commands of a LV-thirsty, morbidly curious god again- but, for the moment, you're alright. You're good. Frisk is in your arms, your brother's back by your side where he belongs, Mom and Dad are alive and fine, and you haven't ripped Frisk's body away from them or killed anyone with their hands this time.

Everything's fine.

For now.

 

And now is all you need.

 

 

... Maybe if you keep telling yourself that, one day you'll believe it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (edit: originally i intended to continue this fic beyond this chapter. this is no longer the case! my apologies.)

**Author's Note:**

> ayy lmao hope you enjoyed
> 
> in all honesty, this was much shorter than i would have liked. i'm sure i'll make up for it in later chapters. i love this ship way too much lmao, whether queerplatonic (which will probably be featured in a couple other fanfics i have planned...............) or, yknow, like this.
> 
> also i know nothing about university tbh so??? if i get terminology wrong???????? tell me, i guess???????????/


End file.
